The Jostlers

Leadership

Brad Palmer, CEO
As the CEO and co-founder of Jostle, Brad has more than 30 years of experience leading multidisciplinary teams and driving the commercialization of technology businesses. Prior to starting Jostle, Brad provided overall leadership to OMNEX Controls where he improved strategy, process, and leadership to quickly transform the company. Brad also worked at Kodak, where he successfully consolidated 15 teams from three companies into a unified worldwide operation. Earlier, he founded ThermicEdge Corporation and built it into a public company that custom manufactured high-performance components for the electronics industry. Brad’s rich operational experience with private, public and governmental organizations, which spans a wide range of cultures, industries and business models, played a key role in defining the underlying need for, and the unique design of Jostle. Brad holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Physics from SFU.

Don Wadsworth, VP of Sales
As the Vice President of Sales, Don has a 20-year history of business leadership, bringing a wealth of experience in sales, marketing, product management, and systems engineering. Prior to joining Jostle, Don led the overall strategy and product roadmap for the industrial and mobile wireless product portfolio of Cooper Industries. Don also worked at OMNEX Controls, having full P&L responsibility for the Industrial Wireless Business Unit, including driving product, channel, and direct sales strategy. Earlier in his career, Don successfully built a network of systems integrators and agents to grow software sales by 50% in three years for an automation products and services provider. He is a graduate in Electrical Engineering from  the British Columbia Institute of Technology and in Sales and Marketing Management from the University of British Columbia.

David O’Brien, VP of Finance and Operations
David oversees all of Jostle’s operations and plays a key role in scaling our infrastructure and tracking our metrics. He joins Jostle from Kodak where he led the Business Processes Team, and brings an extensive background in managing change and driving business improvement. David has more than 20 years of experience in roles ranging from manufacturing and product development to international sales operations and finance. Prior to his role at Kodak, David spent over six years at Creo, where he served as Vice President of Operations and Finance for both North America and Japan. David holds a Masters in Business Administration from the University of British Columbia and a Bachelors of Applied Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Waterloo.

Design

David Humphrey, Director of User Experience + Design
With an intense passion for user design and experience, David is the chief visionary behind the experience Jostle delivers to its users. He is also responsible for all our visual designs. David has more than 12 years of experience as an Interaction Designer. Before joining Jostle, David worked at Kodak where his responsibilities included the overall user experience, visual direction, and usability aspects of a complex,  market-leading, web-enabled software suite. Previously, he worked as an Interaction Designer in the e-learning courseware industry producing interactive multimedia applications for medical researchers, offshore  technology industries and Fortune 100 companies, including KPMG and Microsoft. He holds a Bachelor of Graphic Design from NSCAD University and a Masters in Interaction Design from Emily Carr University, where he researched technology-mediated human-human collaboration. David also teaches at the Emily Carr University instructing courses on Interaction Design introducing design research methods.

Operations

Teg Ryan, Director of Technical Operations
Teg oversees all the technical operations of Jostle, keeping our service secure and reliable. He also leads customer support and manages projects helping customers integrate our platform to other enterprise systems. Teg’s experience spans 10 years in IT management, overseeing complex enterprise infrastructures and software development teams across North America. He is particularly skilled in project management, systems administration, QA, network security and team leadership. While at HardEight Trading, Teg led the development of a large-scale global trading infrastructure and had direct responsibility for data accuracy, security, and regulatory compliance. Most recently, he held a senior IT position at a boutique SEO, agency where he acted as account executive, led a team of 30 developers, managed hundreds of website projects and maintained 1,000+ live URL’s. Teg  holds an Internet Systems Specialist Diploma from the University of Winnipeg.

Marketing

Kelly Batke, Director of Marketing
Kelly oversees all of Jostle’s lead generation activities and content creation. As an analytics junkie and a strategic thinker, Kelly loves to find new opportunities with a focus on ROI and scalability. Prior to joining Jostle, Kelly worked for IT security company Faronics as a Communications Manager, where she was a key member of their core leadership team. Kelly’s biggest passion is communicating complex ideas into content for various audiences.  Kelly is a key contributor to the Jostle blog where she balances humour with her key observations of the workplace. In addition to studying Technical Communication at SFU, Kelly also studied at PR and Communications at Langara, and Marketing Management  at BCIT. She is a Certified Technical Communicator.

Jessica Hollander, Director of External Relations
Jessica oversees the management and coordination of all of Jostle’s external relations. This includes building and maintaining strong relations with key industry influencers and associations as well as shareholders, investors, and analysts. She also manages all Jostle events and tradeshows and Jostle’s social media engagement. Another key responsibility for Jessica is facilitating our customer community, including overseeing the Jostle Forum where customers can interact, learn and share information. Jessica’s work experience and history extends across multiple verticals including hospitality, recruiting, and the music industry. She has a diploma in Marketing Management and Communications from BCIT.

Morgan Bartlett, Jostle Cartoonist
Morgan Bartlett went to Simon Fraser University, originally to study visual arts at the School of Contemporary Arts.  After a year in the department, She realized her real passion lay in archaeology, although she could never say goodbye to art. In 2010 She graduated with a BA from the Department of Archaeology and is currently working on the Pacific Northwest Coast as an archaeologist for Sources Archaeology & Heritage Inc. She has continued to design for clothing companies, album covers, and now Jostle, as well as produce art shows with local Vancouver artists of all mediums.

Rocket Boy, Dream Specialist
As Jostle’s Dream Specialist and unofficial mascot, Rocket Boy enjoys inspiring others.  When he isn’t in the office, Rocket Boy likes accompanying his coworkers on tradeshows and other public facing opportunities where he can be photographed. The pint-sized mannequin enjoys wearing aviator gear and a replica jet-pack. Like all other Jostlers, Rocket Boy has huge dreams and aspirations.

Development

Len Takeuchi, Director of System Architecture
As the Director of Systems Architecture, Len oversees our server-side architecture and the architecture of integrations with third party products/services and customer systems. Len is a pioneer in the areas of rich internet applications and designed his first SaaS-deployed product back in 2000. He has over 18 years of experience designing innovative software products for enterprise applications for companies including MacDonald Dettwiler, Mercury Scheduling Systems, Salescentrix, and Realm Dynamics. Len has a proven track record for clarifying and documenting technical requirements and innovating scalable architectures. Len holds a Masters degree in computer engineering from UBC and has also contributed to the industry  literature in recent years.

Geoff Huenemann, Director of Product Development
As the Director of Product Development, Geoff’s duties range from driving overall client-side architecture choices, to task estimation and scheduling, grant and patent application writing, and contributing to the human interaction design process. He also contributes to coding—from larger features to bug fixing. Prior to Jostle, he led a large multi-disciplinary development team at Kodak. Geoff also worked for Nortel Networks for 15 years in development teams in Ottawa, London, Paris, Bangalore, Boston, and Santa Clara. Geoff excels at quickly understanding and communicating challenging technical issues to a variety of audiences, and at  building skilled, agile teams. He also enjoys teaching technical concepts, most recently delivering a Javascript course for the Masters in Digital Media program at the Great Northern Way Campus. Geoff received an honours B.Sc. in Computer Science from UBC.

Alex Polunochev, Software Developer
Alex oversees the development of client-side code, performing magic transformations from design mock-ups to speedy features that delight customers and work reliably across many devices and browsers. As one of the core Developers of the Jostle platform, Alex has over 10 years of Java, IT, and web development experience. Most recently, Alex was Lead Developer at Datech where he worked on the development and deployment of a major online payment engine that is used by millions of visitors worldwide. His earlier experience includes Java development of high-availability, high-load projects for a large provider of online social network platforms, as well as web development for an internet service provider. Alex holds a Bachelors Degree in Computer Engineering from Donetsk National Technical University in Ukraine.

Dwight Ivany, QA Specialist
Dwight leads QA, test, and deployment of the Jostle platform. As a free-spirited insightful thinker, Dwight believes strongly that computers are tools that allow us to live more beautiful lives, and it is the role of Quality Assurance and Test to ensure the system realizes that dream. Like most Jostlers, Dwight is passionate about engagement and believes innovation can be used to encourage people to connect on a deeper level, and that is what life is really about. Examples of that engagement can be heard through his music and seen in the software at Jostle. Dwight’s work experience includes many years at Corel, Creo, and Kodak—all where he led test teams. Dwight has a degree in Electronic Tele-Communications Engineering from Cabot College, Newfoundland.

Felipe Gasparino, Java Developer
Felipe is one of our creative Java UI developers. He joined Jostle from Brazil where he worked in IT for over three years. As a Web Java  Developer, Felipe worked for some of the biggest IT consulting companies in Brazil. Prior to moving to Canada, he was a Systems Analyst at CPM Braxis Capgemini and a Programmer Analyst and Support Analyst at Probank. In those positions, he developed business rules, web pages, testing plans, and reports. Felipe has completed a technical high school (IT Systems Development) in São Paulo, Brazil. As a true technology aficionado, Felipe spends his spare time reading and researching about new technologies.

Advisors

Alec Szibbo, Corporate Counsel
Alec is one of the leading counsels in Canada in the fields of Intellectual Property, Technology and Internet Law. For over 30 years Alec Szibbo has represented clients in the acquisition, commercialization, exploitation and sale of technology assets and creative works. His past positions have included in-house counsel for Nortel Networks, Canadian Justice Department Advisor, and partner in several national law firms. He became a member of the Bars of California, Ontario and British Columbia, and also was appointed for many years an Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia Law School. He is an author and a frequent lecturer at international venues on the Technology Law, Intellectual Property and the Internet.

Jon Husband, Enterprise 2.0 and HR Consulting
Jon Husband is an organizational consultant well known for his deep understanding of the impact of the Web on the internal workings of organizations.  From the mid-80’s to the mid ‘90’s, as a Senior Principal in the Hay Group, Jon consulted to major multinational corporations on HR strategy, organizational effectiveness, organizational change and leadership development. Over the past decade he has concentrated on the growing impacts of IT and the Web on the design and dynamics of knowledge work and social interaction online. He coined the term “wirearchy” in 1999, a concept that captures the organizational power that comes from using emerging Web technologies to marry collaborative networks and hierarchical approaches.  In 2008 Jon published a book titled “Making Knowledge Work – the arrival of Web 2.0”.  He is a regular contributor to the high-profile blogs FASTForward and The AppGap, and is an active international speaker on the Web’s growing impact on enterprises and society.